How we make money, in full

It is free. All of it, permanently.

• Posting your case is free.
• Receiving quotes is free, however many arrive.
• Comparing them, messaging providers and engaging one is free.
• There is no fee to see a quote, no fee to unlock contact details, and nothing to pay to be seen sooner. That last one does not exist here at any price.

You pay your agent or lawyer directly, on their invoice. VisaBid never holds your money and never takes a percentage of their fee, so nobody in this system earns more by talking you into a more expensive quote.

The only money that leaves your hands is the professional fee you agreed with your provider and the Department's own charges, which are the same whoever lodges your application. Work out your own number.

Almost every marketplace takes a percentage. We do not, and the reason is criminal law rather than generosity.

Section 281(2) of the Migration Act 1958 makes it an offence carrying ten years imprisonment to ask for or receive a fee or other reward for the giving of immigration assistance by another person who is not a registered migration agent.

Read that against a platform taking a cut of an agent's fee. While every provider is properly registered, no offence arises. But registrations lapse, get cancelled, and occasionally a wrong number gets past a verification step. On the day that happens, a platform on a percentage has received a reward for immigration assistance given by an unregistered person. A subscription for software has not: it is owed whether or not any assistance is given, whether or not any client ever pays.

Choosing the safer side of that line has consequences we like anyway:

• Nobody here profits from your fee going up. We earn the same whether your agent quotes $2,000 or $8,000, so the comparison you see is not tilted.
• Your money never touches us. You pay your provider directly. There is no platform account holding client funds, which is also what section 50 of the Code is about.
• It removes the fee-sharing question for solicitors under the Legal Profession Uniform Law. A subscription is not sharing legal receipts with a non-lawyer.

The percentage option still exists in the code behind an administrator setting, for a future where there is an Australian entity and advice saying it is fine. It is off, it is forced off on every restart, and the settings page says why.

Providers can buy a promoted slot: $99 for 30 days, $249 for 90 days. We would rather describe it plainly than have you find it and wonder what else we have not said.

A promoted slot puts a provider in a separate block above the directory. Every card in it is marked “Promoted”, and the block carries a line saying the provider paid for it and that it is not a recommendation.

It does not change the order of the results. Not by one position. The code that orders the directory is not given the promotion data at all, and a test fails the build if anyone ever wires it in. It also does not affect who is invited to quote on your case.

Paid placement presented as a recommendation is what the ACCC took trivago to the Federal Court over, and the penalty was $44.7 million. The labelled version is the only one worth selling.

• No commission on professional fees.
• No cut of disbursements. That money is the Department's.
• No lead fees, no pay-per-contact, no pay-to-unlock.
• No fee for an applicant, for anything, at any point.
• No charge to leave. Export your file and go; your provider keeps their own copy for seven years because section 56 of the Code requires it, not because we do.